The heart is important in the Bible [762 in KJV, 541 in NIV not including plurals] and in our salvation and our relationship with God. Although the exact words “Ask Jesus into your heart” may not be found in the Bible the concept certainly is.
It is with our heart that we believe and are justified (Romans 10:10). Calling on the name of the Lord saves (Acts 2:21; Romans 10:13). Calling on the Lord can be as simple as thief on the cross: “Lord remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Paul had to be knocked off of a donkey and blinded by an extremely bright divine light before he called upon the Lord (Acts 22:6-16).
Paul prayed that Christ would dwell in people’s hearts (Ephesians 3:16-17). So I see nothing wrong in a person asking that Jesus come into their heart. After all it isn’t the words a person says it is the intent of their heart. True confession, repentance and trust must accompany whatever words are spoken. “Anyone who trusts in him will not be put to shame” (Romans 10:13). “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

It’s been a few months now since I posted my post but I have finally finished my book – 17 Irritating Laws of Followship: Rediscovering what it means to follow the radical Jesus – and wanted to invite you all to interact with it if you choose to. The book is on the printer, but I will be posting on the blog I created for the book – 17irritatinglawsoffollowship.blogspot.com – in the lead up to it’s release.

At the moment you will find the Foreword written by Australian Christian author, speaker, and social justice advocate, John Smith, on that blog. Feel free to go take a look…

If you want to be kept up to date on the book release and the special pre-release offer i will be making in the next week or so, please feel free to e-mail me at markgladmancomedy@gmail.com and i will add you to the mailing list.

Cheers, Peace and thank you for your support.

All the best, Kent,

Mark G

As an aside, if you want to get at some of the material behind Rob Bell’s portrayal in Velvet Elvis then check out Ray Vanderlaan (www.followtherabbi.com).

Best wishes on the publishing of your book. Stop by anytime.

Cheers.

Just dropping a thought.

I came here as I am working on a book which will be published in August called “The 21 Irritating Laws of ‘Followship’”. In the Introduction I am setting the scene for the book by sharing my thesis about why it is Christians have such a hard time really following Jesus.

On of my points is what you guys are taling about here. That is, when we ‘ask Jesus into our heart’, what we are doing is asking Jesus up, over or into OUR turf. But, as you have pointed out here, Jesus, nor any of the teaching epistles, talk about doing this as all.

Rather, Jesus and the teacing epistles use terminology such as ‘follow me’; ‘take up your cross and follow me’; ‘repent’; ‘come to me’; sell your possessions… give to the poor and come follow me’; ‘receive the Kingdom of God’; ‘enter in’; ‘enter through’; ‘be baptised into’; and ‘believe in’.

Lets remember, Revelation 3 is not written to the unchurched. Jesus is speaking to the CHURCH (the Christians at Loadicea specifically) when He says “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…” Mind you, no mention of heart is there. This is not an evengelism verse at all! In fact, Jesus need to ask this of a church might very well be because we have turned this verse into an evangelism verse!

I think this is an important point because at the end of the day, we cross over onto Jesus’ turf. He might meet us on ours, but he draws us across into His Kingdom.

With my kids, (6 and 8), I use that very terminology – that Jesus wants us to follow Him. When we understand the amazing thing it is that a Rabbi asks grown people to follow him (I won;t go into that here, Rob Bell has a whole chapter on this though in his book Velvet Elvis) and realise the true nature of what it is to be a follower, then it really doesn’t require us to create unhelpful, distracting and, in many ways, perverse terminology.

I will pop back and see if anyone want to comment on this. I appreciate everyones comments above and love the fact that there are places where we can discourse this stuff. Especially as I work at getting what’s in my head onto paper!

Cheers and Peace,

Mark G

T – I appreciate your candor recounting the story about your children. I have thought some about the inevitability that our children will be confronted with the many aspects of my evangelical Christian culture that I am not very excited about. In light of that, you are entirely right it seems to emphasis the dire importance to model our life with God in their presence. Have you ever had to “re-orient” your children related to something they encountered in church that you felt was unhelpful?

James – Thanks for also emphasizing the place of Christian community. I found Steve Webber’s “Ancient Future Evangelism” helpful in rethinking the role catechesis might once again have for the church.

Jim – Concerning the “parental responsibility” comment, I think you are right to put your finger on that. Derek and I were having a conversation offline and he wondered if the push to get children to “ask Jesus into their heart” isn’t only a product of our revivalist heritage (which it certainly is) but might also be related to the old rush to baptize infants. If we feel the pressure ensure that our children make a “decision” for Christ as early as possible then we will find many resistant to the language of “following Christ” or “walking with God” and continue to ask children at very young ages to ask Jesus into their hearts even though they will have very little comprehension of what that might mean. I find myself far more comfortable with the confidence exhibited by Don that we continually invite our children (and adults) to move toward God in whatever small or great ways they are capable and let God hold their responses.

Regarding your comments on “menein”, I’m all out of tomatoes.

I have two comments and welcome any input.

1) To inject yet another ambiguous metaphor, “making a decision for Christ” at any age involves one’s “accountability for ‘light’ received,” and that in turn requires a “maturing” conscience (as Don implied in his comments on “preanalytic or concrete stages of development”). Hence, I would agree with those who hold that we need to consider the notion of “age of accountability.” This in turn would seem to be a somewhat “moving target” for any given child, depending on how soon one comes to “maturity of conscience” and how much “light” has been made available.

From that standpoint, I guess it might be kind of “scary” to be Kent’s child or T. Moore’s child at their respective ages, considering the blazing sunlight to which they are exposed. (just kidding…) Derek’s comments touch on this.

Having planted that “stake” in the ground, I would ask whether our concern with our children is more that we (a) make sure they populate heaven along with us, thereby discharging our parental responsibility for evangelism; or (b) rest in God’s sovereign ability to “weave all these things together” (thank’s Don) and concentrate on inviting our kids to be robust disciples in the Kingdom as their unique characters and giftedness begin to emerge. The latter alternative would then afford potentially countless opportunities for clarification and fine-tuning of evangelistic/atonement metaphors (yeah, it’s somewhat of a language game, Scot).

My personal conviction is that Christ’s atoning work was/is/will be sufficient for all who have not reached the age of accountability, having “taken care of” our guilt in Adam (Rom 5:18); this in turn “takes the monkey off our parental backs” before the age of accountability. I realize Rom 5:12-21 is the subject of huge debate, but I hasten to clarify that I am not a universalist, except in the sense that Christ takes care of all our guilt in Adam until we truly have the ability to receive the free gift of grace for personal sin and guilt. In this light (no pun intended) I would have to second the comments of Derek and Kent re: Deut. as regards parental responsibility.

2) With regard to Kent’s initial comments (with added emphasis) on Snodgrass’s blog, I would exercise great caution before assigning such specific soteriological significance to Johannine use of the verb menein. If Snodgrass means that we are not “saved” when we don’t menein, then “we have a problem, Houston.” The text really doesn’t support Johannine menein as the equivalent of Pauline en Christo.

My conviction is that the injunctions John addressed to his teknia relate to ongoing fellowship and confession in response to “light” received as those who have already been purchased by Christ (1 Jn 2:1-2, 12-14). We continue to be exposed to God as light in our “walk” with Him throughout life (1 Jn 1:5-2:11). So according to John, it is not our “place in heaven” that is contingent on abiding but rather our fellowship with Christ (“attachment,” cf. John 15; 1 Jn 1:1-4) and our responsiveness to His Spirit.

As relates to our own children, then, and the above discussion, John’s injunctions about abiding do not apply to our paidia until they are aware that they are also God’s teknia through faith. The real “monkey on our backs” as parents has to do with the way we abide (or don’t) as examples and “light” for our kids (again, with a nod to Derek and Kent on this).

OK, I’m ready for the tomatoes, cat-calls, and heckling, such as there may be…

There are two things I might add to the conversation so far. First, I think its important to recognize that if our children are involved in an evangelical subculture on any level, they are going to hear the gospel presented with this type of language. I was surprised at how strongly I wanted to react when I heard that language from him and I had to catch myself and make sure I allowed him to express and process what he was thinking and hearing from others without my “disapproval” of his or others’ language coming through to him. It actually turned out to be a great conversation and a significant step in his process of believing.

Second, I think that along with talking about God/Jesus/salvation concepts with our children we need to make sure we model them also, and then explicitly connect the dots for them. E.g. model grace when they deserve punishment then connect that in some way to God’s grace. Point out current events or stories that model these concepts in some way, etc.

Thanks for a great conversation….